Huron Tours' Adventures

Great Dixter - Chelsea Flower Show Tour

Great Dixter Creator Christopher Lloyd's Writing Chair

I know - it's a picture of a chair. But, I think pretty much even the most casual of landscape design fans, or gardeners, or people who have though about garden travel in their lives have heard of the very influential Christopher Lloyd, and have either visited, or planned to visit his creation: Great Dixter, in East Sussex England.

Huron Tours brings our clients to Great Dixter on our "English Garden Extension" at the end of May (following the Chelsea Flower Show). We enjoy a private tour of the Great Dixter house, followed by a private tour of the amazing gardens famous for the mixed long border, meadow/orchard, and sunk and walled gardens. On these garden tours, we are often accompanied by one of the garden cats, or Connie, one of two dachshunds on site (this year we didn't have a dachshund on the tour with us, but we heard the new puppy barking.)

Connie keeps watch at Great Dixter

So, what about this chair at the top of the page? That's kind of a weird picture for a garden tour website to have - especially on a blog post that's about one of the most famous gardens in the world. Well - in addition to gardening, the late Christopher Lloyd was also a dedicated garden writer with an elegant and lovely writing style - not what one would expect when reading a book called "Exotic Planting for Adventurous Gardeners." He preferred to write in longhand, with his notebook resting on his lap, in that very chair pictured above. The chair, His chair, is in the home at Great Dixter where Christo, as he is called by those who knew him, spent many hours perfecting his weekly garden column over the 42 years he contributed to England's "Country Life Magazine," and his twenty five gardening books. On touring the house, upstairs in an antique bookcase, you will found bound hardback copies of Country Life magazine. Shelves and shelves of them - all containing contributions from Christo.

The chair sits in front of a fire hearth. In winter, when the fire was lit, in additional to warmth, the fire would often fill the room with smoke. It has been reported that Christo didn't seem to mind, or even notice the smoke, and often one would have to walk right up next to the chair to see if Christo was there, writing in his notebook.